At least the movie features a few solid performances to make it a worthwhile diversion for some viewers. Others less inclined to easily resolved romances may want to book some other excursion.

While The Boy Behind the Door runs out of steam a bit in the third act, it’s mostly a tight, well-paced thriller with terrific central performances from a couple of young actors with bright futures ahead of them—once they get out of here, that is.

The film's tight construction and prolific action scenes carry it, and Blunt and Johnson do the irresistible force/immovable object dynamic well enough, swapping energies as the story demands.

It is an educational journey, an uncompromising look into the challenges of an artistic life, and a tribute to the man whose studio and dance company still bear his name.

The film is most satisfying when it's just giving us details of Kilmer's philosophy of acting, which is uncompromising to the point of being exasperating, but lively, and ultimately preferable to the default attitude of so many straight male actors who denigrate their profession as trivial, or somehow unbecoming of an adult.

It is scary, sexy, and strange in ways that American films are rarely allowed to be, culminating in a sequence that cast the whole film in a new light for this viewer. We're all just sitting in that banquet hall, listening to the story requested by King Arthur, told by a master storyteller.

It's frustrating to watch a movie that seems so unable to get out of its own way—all the more so because this is one of the last collaborations between the Oscar-winning screenwriting team of Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry.

Despite an obviously resourceful filmmaker at the helm and a more-than-game Beckinsale with proven genre chops, the film’s ultimately empty action bores more than it intrigues.

What works so well in Mandibles is how it's set up as a basic heist movie, using very familiar elements, so familiar they're almost tired cliches, before going completely off the rails into random demented territory.

From the “how do you mess that up” school of filmmaking, Blood Red Sky takes a phenomenal concept that mixes genre hits like From Dusk Till Dawn, Snakes on a Plane, and Train to Busan and just blows it on poorly choreographed action, momentum-draining flashbacks, and an interminable runtime.

If you are in the mood for a "they don't make movies like that anymore" movie, meaning soapy melodrama with enough glamorous glow to keep you from thinking too hard, then The Last Letter From Your Lover might do the trick.

The tone rarely hits its target for dark levity, often making one wonder, “Was that meant to be funny?”

With a strong cast and an intriguing premise that basically transports a Western plot into outer space, Settlers should work, but it simply sags in the middle, only barely sparking to life again in a more suspenseful final act.

While the themes here are, of course, redolent of neorealism, the filmmakers don’t make ostentatious nods to cinema past. Their voice is their own; the camera is mobile when it needs to be, but stands still much of the time, letting the excellent cast build their characters as the events of the film test their endurance.

Midnight in the Switchgrass is the type of crime thriller that’s so full of cliches that it becomes one big cliche itself.

More often than not, Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins is a dire checklist of clichés that were already gathering moss back in the 1980s, when G.I. Joe was a popular children’s cartoon.

Sadly, the film crashes when it decides to offer some sane explanations and connect dots that didn’t really need to be connected. There’s a much stronger version of “Old” that ends more ambiguously, allowing viewers to leave the theatre playing around with themes instead of unpacking exactly what was going on.

While I like the laid-back attitude the filmmakers apply to the theoretically devastating situation, it quickly becomes apparent that attitude is the only thing the film really has to offer to viewers. Although there are a few amusing moments here and there, the comedic situations are too droll for their own good and too often seem to waste potentially interesting ideas.

Executed with the confidence of a victory lap, the last hour of "1666" is a series highlight, especially as it captures the brand of out-and-out fun that has made Janiak a newly minted crowd-pleaser in horror.

On paper, it sounds iffy; in execution, however, it’s absolutely glorious, a gleeful glide through adolescence that doesn’t gloss over pangs of grief or grimmer thoughts.

Co-directors Aisling Chin-Yee and Chase Joynt exalt the professional and personal life of Jazz musician Billy Tipton in No Ordinary Man, and avoid simplification of the trans masculine experience.

"D-Man" is one of the most eloquent works of art to come out of the AIDS era, and it continues to be done by dance companies around the world. Can You Bring It shows the challenges inherent in this, but is also an essential reminder—to people who sorely need it—of just how bad it really was "back then"...

While Salomé isn’t anything but a mainstream director, he’s a good one, keeping the movie percolating up to its crowd-pleasing finale and coda.

It’s a fascinating, moving documentary that transcends mere profile piece to reclaim a legacy, and it’s as inspirational as its subject.

By the end of this film, you might think that understanding trees on such human terms is not even close to doing them justice.

Schiffli’s snarky and snide self-aware tone quickly grows wearisome, and his action sequences have a cheapness about them that’s distancing; they’re almost laughable but never so-bad-they’re-good.

The Boys in Red Hats is a necessary watch that elicits frustration by exposing our insular ideology with a raw aplomb.

Perhaps Wilson would have benefitted from the subtle method of Jaws, or even The Reef, by prioritizing teasing over showing. But here, the shark’s frequent appearances and unrealistic looks lessen the impact of the fear it’s supposed to spread, despite some truly unnerving camerawork by Tony O’Loughlan.

Human error—or uncertainty—is the biggest source of tension in this movie, and it goes a long way towards making this sequel (a little) more than the sum of its flashy parts. You may not need another Escape Room, but this new one is good enough to leave you wanting more.

[Papushado] creates a world that’s so strange, in both a visually striking sense and one that doesn't always work, that even when a performance sputters out or a line of dialogue rings false, it doesn’t tank the movie. However, that level of spectacle through eye-catching production design and visual style means that sometimes the movie’s vivid colors and bullets outshine the star-studded cast.

Whether you think Casanova's a hero worth idolizing, or a dull-as-dishwater man whore from a sexist past, Casanova, Last Love will make you believe he deserved better than this.

There may be a big, corporate, algorithm-like formula deciding that a quarter-century later it's time for another Space Jam, but it's good to see that the insouciant anarchy of Termite Terrace is still pure, unrepentant id.

It's attentive to regret and failure in ways that American films tend to avoid for fear of bumming viewers out and making them warn other people not to watch the movie. And it seems to understand the way people mythologize others and themselves, and the reasons it happens.

Its truncated ending, and the sense that there is far more to this story than what “Platform” includes, puts a damper on the otherwise-engaging documentary.

Phantasm, gnarly as it could get, always had an impish side, just as the monumental power of AC/DC is leavened by the sight of its elfin lead guitarist in a schoolboy uniform. Meander has no such sense of fun. But it offers some newish sights and shocks.

While some elements of the story don’t work as well as the visual playground Ameen sets up for her characters, Scales is still an impressive feature debut.

Leigh Janiak's Fear Street Part Two: 1978 has more slasher thrills, but the fun of this series that makes it Halloween in July returns with an overly serious face, resembling something of a killjoy.

Working the grill, and not letting anyone else touch it, is musician and music lover, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson making his directorial debut. Not only does he give us a concert film, we get a history lesson, too.

The uncanny confidence of Dick Gregory comes through from the opening minutes of The One and Only Dick Gregory, and he only becomes more formidable as the film unfolds.

First Date feels like a throwback caper to something you'd find on cable, funny yet full of action with a generous helping of a timeless romance for good measure. It’s the kind of movie you come across and have to see how it ends.

It’s a full cast of rising young stars, like Stranger Things before it, and Fear Street gives that palpable sense of having fun while hanging out with them, but worrying that one of them might abruptly die.

The performances are better than the material deserves—particularly those of De la Reguera and Huerta, whose reactive closeups have a silent-movie expressiveness; and Lucas, who once again proves that he's willing to play deeply unlikable characters without signaling to the audience that he's a nice guy offscreen, actually.

The supposedly original script from writer Zach Dean offers very little that’s innovative or inspired.

In spite of its icy backdrop, the part home-invasion chiller, part murder-mystery Till Death could prove to be the actual summer movie you’ve been craving for a while: undemanding, a little silly, but a thoroughly engrossing and handsomely paced edge-of-your seat experience all the same.

What chafes is not so much the vulgarity (although it is as relentless as it is unfunny) but the movie’s intractable infatuation with it.

No one mentions it explicitly in the movie, but this film could be in the curriculum of a grad school course on Critical Race Theory, which is not, as some confused people claim, about diversity training in corporate offices or amending history books in grade school.

No Sudden Move is like watching a musician return to the themes and ideas explored throughout a career but with the renewed insight that comes after decades of success.

This is the kind of film that tells its story well while simultaneously showing the joy of the creative act, in Bravo's filmmaking, yes, but also in Zola's decision to take to Twitter and tell her story in the first place.

Producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller bring that non-stop energy of their other projects like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and The Mitchells vs. the Machines even if the writing sometimes feels bizarrely dated.

If you enjoy watching barrel-penned fish get got with a BB gun, you're bound to love Vicious Fun. Vicious Fun courts that kind of glib dismissal since so much of the movie reassures viewers that its creators are also addicted to the formulaic slasher movies that they kind of, sort of mock.

It’s ultimately a film that works on its own terms, a long-delayed enriching of the story of a beloved character that will make her ultimate sacrifice in “Avengers: Endgame” feel even more powerful in hindsight. Every blockbuster this Summer is being touted as the sign that the world is back to normal—“Black Widow” is more a reminder of what fans loved before it shifted off its axis.

Here, [Ruben] lets loose with many of the goofy, creepy impulses that make him such a welcome voice in crowd-pleasing horror, creating a giddy spirit with his long roster of future household names.

Despite its many perils, both natural and human, The Ice Road is surprisingly dull.

Despite its over orchestration, director Vanessa Roth’s slight, hagiographic documentary Mary J. Blige’s My Life, manages to provide profound truths concerning its self-admitted insecure subject.

Gaia does not feel like homework. It's a thought-provoking and disturbing experience rather than a lecture.

Watching the scientists research the mysteries of humpback whales is an inspiring tribute to the power of curiosity, purpose, and the triumphant joy of adding one more piece to the jigsaw puzzle of knowledge.

I Carry You with Me is a complicated film, in many ways, and it covers a lot of ground, but the emotions portrayed are simple and human-sized.

Never as giddily awful as Gotti, this movie suffers more from a case of what film critic Andrew Sarris called “Strained Seriousness.” Except the ostensible seriousness here never runs particularly deep. Lansky is for Keitel completists only.

A deftly made suspense film, but one that falls somewhat short of its aspirations, both as a satire and as a psychological thriller with a critical societal eye.

Cuartas' film provides a generally interesting spin on both the vampire mythos and more typical dysfunctional family dynamics. And while I can't promise it will provide you with a good time at the movies, at least in the conventional sense, I can tell you it's one that's likely to stick with you for a while.

Like the DisneyNature films, it’s strikingly pretty, not just in its gorgeous views of the Austrian countryside, but also in the interiors populated by talking heads and delectable foodstuffs. It’s also startlingly tame, as if its subject, famous celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck, was a commodity whose brand needed to be protected.

But in spite of its form not being as compelling as its subjects, Rebel Hearts is still an inspired and inspirational recounting of a historical moment and the women at the center of it.

Although Sisters on Track has some gaps in its narrative that seem as if certain chunks of the girls’ lives were compressed or skipped over, it's most impactful when offering a thoughtful analysis of the rapidity with which children grow, adapt, and change.

Good on Paper sometimes gets silly, sometimes serious, but it never waivers from its mission of being funny through it all.

The action set-pieces are thrilling and intentionally hilarious, though the digital effects and compositing vary in quality.

Fatherhood is at its best and most watchable when it’s just Hart and Hurd onscreen. Matt and Maddy’s undeniable and reciprocated love for one another radiates from the actors, even in their broadest scenes of comedy.

Moreno, who is brash and self-effacing, thoughtful and charismatic, has such a commanding presence on camera; every time she speaks, you unintentionally lean in a little closer, hanging on to every word she has to say.

Filmmaker Nancy Buirski has an elegant, judicious way of imparting the facts of the case, taking not just the political temperature of the moment (boiling) but finely sketching the character and minds of the people involved.

Summer of 85 plays like a bad parody of movies like Love Story and Summer of ’42, stories where some undeserving male learns a valuable lesson from a love affair and death.

In many ways Rise Again feels like something that would be perfect to show to a middle-school classroom—an even-keeled introduction to a crucial facet of American history and how it lives on painfully in the present—and yet whether this film would even be allowed to be utilized is currently a contentious subject of public debate.

Co-written by Ferrara and Christ Zois, who also wrote the Ferrara films Welcome to New York, The Blackout and New Rose Hotel, this picture can be described best as minimalist pretentiousness, a lot of angst and suffering with no particular place to go.

A soulful, uplifting, but also heartbreaking look at race and poverty's impact on troubled childhood, Alexandre Rockwell's Sweet Thing is a welcome return to form for the accomplished indie filmmaker.

Overall, Les nôtres fails to dive into the depths of its subject matter, hinting at a dark underbelly that it never full explores.

Von Horn has crafted an impressive art film that tells a story outside of the pathological narcissism commonly associated with the world of social media influencers. Even surrounded by the alarmingly curated lifestyle, von Horn and Koleśnik together bring to life a story with more nuance, sophistication and genuine moral curiosity than we’ve seen from the genre.

Once again, Edgar Wright has proven himself to be the master of whimsical filmmaking. Never I have seen a documentary as fun as Wright's The Sparks Brothers, which is thrilling from beginning to end.

While some material may hit with younger audiences, Luca makes for Pixar’s least enchanting, least special film yet.

In depicting one woman’s fight for justice, Kaufman’s indelible documentary becomes an empowering three-dimensional story of resistance and courage.

Directed by Patrick Hughes, this comic book-energy spy adventure, gorgeously captured by cinematographer Terry Stacey and keenly scripted with barbed laden dialogue from Tom O’Connor, Brandon Murphy, and Phillip Murphy, is heavy on blood, guts, action, and star power.

Nicole Riegel's debut feature Holler is a film to treasure—an intimate drama about family and work, steeped in details that can only have been captured by a storyteller who lived them.

There may be one too many obstacles placed in Prerna's way (the pet goat is a prime example), stacking the deck against her so there will be an even bigger payoff. But overall Skater Girl is so gratifying it doesn't matter.

By indulging in the exact same instincts it insists are problematic artistically, Peter Rabbit 2 wants to have its carrot and eat it, too. But maybe that won’t bother you. Maybe you’ll be grateful for a return to the theater and the opportunity to do so with your kids. In that regard, the sequel hops along in sufficiently bouncy fashion.

So while Enid’s investigation never goes anywhere noteworthy, Censor still fosters an increasingly desperate, anxiety-inducing effect.

Akilla’s Escape is undone by its own lack of faith in the viewer, opting to explicitly tell rather than rely on its fine actors to show us who their characters are.

It isn’t bad, per se, but I just never felt the emotional impact it's clearly hoping to achieve.

The characters are bland, the dialogue is atrocious, the action is mediocre, and even the heist is a boring bust.

Wholesome in the most “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” brand of mythical Americanism, 12 Mighty Orphans is engineered to rouse emotions with uncritical pride, never reaching the less immaculate corners of the historical period it employs as canvas.

As all movies about this stage of life must, among obvious jokes about aches, pains, and Viagra—apparently it is okay to sexually objectify someone if you're old—Queen Bees touches gently and sympathetically on the inescapable challenges of aging, loss of loved ones, loss of independence, cancer, strokes, and dementia.

Rather than crafting a high-concept science-fiction marvel, Fuqua’s Infinite relies on shoddy VFX and ropey world-building for the worst film of his career.

Awake has just enough scares and strangeness, plus a sense of dread and paranoia, to make its horror creepy and enjoyable. It’s not a flawless thriller, but enough different elements click into place, like Rodriguez and Greenblatt’s performances.

Whatever the Lutherans thought they were paying for, they accidentally unleashed our most deeply cynical artist at the height of his ferocity toward the country's decaying morality, and wound up funding one of the most upsetting films of the '70s.

Jubilant, unapologetically massive, and bursting with a cozy, melancholic sense of communal belonging, In The Heights is the biggest-screen-you-can-find Hollywood event that we the movie lovers have been craving since the early days of the pandemic, when the health crisis cut off one of our most cherished public lifelines.

It's to the credit of Anthony, who wrote and edited as well as directed, and his cinematographer Corey Hughes, that you come away thinking about parts of the film that felt like cut-able digressions and undergraduate musings when you were watching them.

What could have been a powerful, timely, and potentially funny meditation on the grieving process is instead a work that's about as thin and flavorless as a gum wrapper.

It’s full of pure, unadulterated love for “The Greatest,” so much so that the viewer can’t help but get enveloped in its adoration.

The movie's dialogue is clunky and the acting is uneven, which keeps the tone more preachy than dramatic.

There are a lot of fragmentary ideas in The Real Thing, but they’re not cohesive or worthwhile as they’re loosely formed into one grey 232-minute lump.

Petzold keeps his mystery afloat (sorry) thanks to his impeccable craft even if this is a tale that sometimes feels like it needed a more magical and less direct approach.

It’s a film filled with half-hearted ideas and thin characters, all in the service of a story that wallows in its trauma in a manner that gives it little purpose.